ASmallWorld
ASMALLWORLD (ASW) is an exclusive, paid-subscription social network, which relaunched in the spring of 2013 as a private international travel and social club, with a peer-recommended and verified user base capped membership at 250,000 members. Described as "Myspace for millionaires" and "The secret social network for the elite", the site was founded in 2004 by Erik Wachtmeister and was one of the first social networks at that time.
Recently, ASMALLWORLD has been the subject of controversy for failing to provide the goods and services promised, engaging in gender discrimination and eliminating members without good cause.
To join, one must receive an invitation from an existing member, or an invitation from the governing board after filing an application to be considered for membership.
Company history
In March 2004, Wachtmeister and his wife Louise Wachtmeister founded the social networking website ASmallWorld as an exclusive social networking site for a worldwide community of people already connected by three degrees of separation. It launched at almost the same time as MySpace and Facebook, two years before Facebook was made available to non-college students. It was dubbed "MySpace for millionaires" by the Wall Street Journal. To maintain its desired exclusivity, ASmallWorld, while free, was invitation-only, open only to those invited by an existing member. Whereas Facebook soon opened its membership to everyone, A Small World remained exclusive. Wachtmeister, over the course of his travels, identified an existing niche community of people with similar lifestyles and tastes. He wanted to provide them with a platform to network and share information.
